One year after its establishment, the 1st Cavalry Regiment's first military action was a peacekeeping mission in "Bleeding Kansas," where pro-slavery and free state factions clashed violently. It also fought against hostile Plains Indians. Its first commanders were Col.Edwin V. Sumner and Lt. Col.Joseph E. Johnston, both future Civil War generals. The regiment's first major combat action came on July 30, 1857, at the Battle of Solomon Fork in Kansas against a large force of Southern Cheyenne warriors.

Civil War

Overview

As early as 1854, the War Department had been wanting to redesignate all mounted regiments as cavalry and to renumber them in order of seniority. As the 1st Cavalry Regiment was the fourth oldest mounted regiment in terms of active service, it was redesignated as the 4th United States Cavalry Regiment on August 3, 1861.

Details of Civil War service

With so many regiments being sent east for the war effort, the 1st U.S. Cavalry was initially kept on the frontier until militia-type units were raised to protect against Indian raids. On June 22, 1861, former 1st Cavalry officer George McClellan, now a major general, requested Company A and Company E to serve as his personal escort. These two companies saw action in the Bull Run, Peninsula, Antietam and Fredericksburg campaigns, not rejoining the regiment until 1864. The rest of the 1st Cavalry was committed to action in Mississippi and Missouri.

Since 1854 it had been advocated to redesignate all mounted regiments as cavalry and to renumber them in order of seniority. This was done on August 3, 1861. As the 1st Cavalry was the fourth oldest mounted regiment, it was redesignated as the 4th Cavalry Regiment.

During the early years of the Civil War, Union commanders scattered their cavalry regiments, conducting company, squadron (two company) and battalion (four company) operations. The 4th Cavalry was no exception, with its companies scattered from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Coast carrying out the traditional cavalry missions of reconnaissance, screening and raiding.

In the first phases of the war in the West, companies of 4th Cavalry saw action in various Missouri, Mississippi and Kentucky campaigns, as well as the seizure of Forts Henry and Donelson and the Battle of Shiloh. On December 31, 1862, a two-company squadron of the 4th Cavalry attacked and routed a Confederate cavalry brigade near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In 1863–64, companies of the 4th saw further action in Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi. On June 30, 1863, another squadron charged a six-gun battery of Confederate artillery near Shelbyville, Tennessee, capturing the entire battery and three hundred prisoners.

By the spring of 1864, the success of the large Confederate cavalry corps of J.E.B. Stuart had convinced the Union leadership to form their own Cavalry Corps in the East under General Philip Sheridan. The 4th Cavalry was ordered to reunite as a regiment and, on December 14, 1864, it joined in the attack on Nashville, Tennessee, as part of the Western Cavalry Corps commanded by General James Wilson. In the hard-fought battle, the 4th help turn the Confederate flank, sending them in retreat. As the Confederate forces attempted a delaying action at West Harpeth, Tennessee, an element of the 4th Cavalry led by Lt. Joseph Hedges charged and captured a Confederate artillery battery. For his bravery, Hedges received the Medal of Honor, the first one to be bestowed on a member of the 4th Cavalry.

In March 1865, General Wilson was ordered to take his cavalry on a drive through Alabama to capture the Confederate supply depot at Selma. Wilson had devoted considerable effort in preparing his cavalry for the mission, and it was a superbly trained and disciplined force that left Tennessee, led by the 4th Cavalry. As the column moved south into Alabama, it encountered the famed Confederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. With superior numbers and firepower, Wilson's force defeated the Confederates, allowing the Union troopers to arrive in Selma the next day. On April 2, 1865, the attack on Selma commenced, led by the 4th Cavalry in a mounted charge. A railroad cut and fence line soon halted the mounted attack. Dismounting, the regiment pressed the attack and stormed the town. Selma's rich store of munitions and supplies were destroyed, along with the foundries and arsenals.

Wilson next turned east to link up with General Sherman. His force took Montgomery, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia, before arriving in Macon, Georgia, where word came of the surrender of Lee's and Johnston's armies. The regiment remained in Macon as occupation troops. After participating in the Battle of Columbus—the last battle of the war—the regiment assisted in capturing fugitive Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Indian Wars

In August 1865, the 4th Cavalry was sent to Texas. At various times during the next thirteen years, units from its twelve companies occupied military posts between the Rio Grande River and Jacksboro, and between San Antonio and San Angelo. {See Fifth Military District for reports of the 4th Cavalry in Texas between 1867-1869}. Before 1871, the operations of the regiment were limited to guarding the mail and settlements against Indians and to desultory attempts to overtake bands of Indian raiders. The regiment's commander during this period, Col. Lawrence Pike Graham, never had to lead a major campaign, and none of the regiment's fourteen skirmishes with Indians was of major significance.

In August 1871, Mackenzie led an expedition into Indian Territory against the Comanches and Kiowas who had left the agency, but he was later ordered to return to Texas. He then led eight companies of the 4th Cavalry and two companies of the 11th U.S Infantry, about 600 men, in search of Quahadi Comanches, who had refused to go onto the reservation and were plundering the Texas frontier. On October 10, he skirmished with a group of them in Blanco Canyon, near the site of present Crosbyton, but the entire band escaped across the plains.

The following summer, Mackenzie, with six companies of the 4th Cavalry, renewed his search for the Quahadis. After establishing his supply camp on the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos River (now the White River) southeast of present Crosbyton, Mackenzie with five companies of cavalry followed a cattle trail across the unexplored High Plains into the New Mexico Territory and returned by another well-watered Comanchero road from Fort Bascom, near the site of present Tucumcari, New Mexico, to the site of present Canyon. At the head of 222 cavalrymen on September 29, he surprised and destroyed Chief Mow-way's village of Quahadi and Kotsoteka Comanches on the North Fork of the Red River about six miles (10 km) east of the site of present day Lefors, Texas. An estimated 52 Indians were killed and 124 captured, with a loss of 3 cavalrymen killed and 3 wounded. For almost a year, both the Kiowas and Comanches remained at peace.

In March 1873, Mackenzie and five companies (A, B, C, E, and K) of the 4th Cavalry were transferred to Fort Clark with orders to put an end to the Mexican-basedKickapoo and Apache depredations in Texas, which had cost an alleged $48 million. On May 18, 1873, Mackenzie, with five companies of the 4th Cavalry, crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico; they then surprised and burned three villages of the raiders near Remolino, Coahuila; the cavalrymen killed nineteen Indians and captured forty-one, with a loss of one trooper killed and two wounded. The soldiers recrossed the Rio Grande into Texas at daybreak the next morning, with some of the men having ridden an estimated 160 miles (260 km) in 49 hours. The raid and an effective system of border patrols brought temporary peace to the area. The John Wayne movie Rio Grande (film) (part of John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy) is loosely based on this incident.

When the Southern Plains Indians opened the Red River War in June 1874, the Grant administration discarded its Quaker peace policy and authorized the military to take control of the reservations and subdue all hostile Indians. General Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the Division of the Missouri, ordered five military expeditions to converge on their hideouts along the upper Red River country. In the ensuing campaign, the 4th Cavalry was the most successful. On September 26–27, it staved off a Comanche attack at the head of Tule Canyon, and, on the morning of September 28, descended by a narrow trail to the bottom of Palo Duro Canyon. There it completely destroyed five Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne villages, including large quantities of provisions, and captured 1,424 horses and mules, of which 1,048 were slaughtered at the head of Tule Canyon. Afterward, Mackenzie, with detachments of the regiment, made two other expeditions onto the High Plains. On November 3, near the site of Tahoka, in their last fight with the Comanches, the cavalrymen killed two and captured nineteen Indians. In the spring of 1875, Mackenzie and elements of the 4th Cavalry from various posts in Texas were sent to Fort Sill to take control of the Southern Plains Indians.

Meanwhile, the Indians in Mexico had renewed their marauding in Texas. In 1878 General Sherman, at the insistence of the Texans, transferred Mackenzie and six companies of the 4th Cavalry to Fort Clark. This time Mackenzie led a larger and more extensive expedition into Mexico, restored a system of patrols, and reestablished peace in the devastated region of South Texas.

Outside Texas, Mackenzie and the 4th Cavalry administered and controlled the Kiowa-Comanche and the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservations for several years, and, after the defeat of George Armstrong Custer's command at the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876, forced Red Cloud and his band of Sioux and the Northern Cheyennes to surrender. In the autumn of 1879, Mackenzie with six companies of the 4th Cavalry subdued the hostile Utes in Southern Colorado without firing a shot and in August 1880 forced them to move to a reservation in Utah Territory.

Immediately thereafter, the 4th Cavalry was transferred to Arizona Territory, where Mackenzie was to assume full command of all military forces in the department and subdue the hostile Apaches. Within less than a month, the Apaches had surrendered or fled to Mexico, and on October 30, Mackenzie and the 4th Cavalry were transferred to the new District of New Mexico. By November 1, 1882, when W. B. Royall replaced Mackenzie as colonel, the 4th Cavalry had forced the White Mountain Apaches, Jicarilla Apaches, Navajos, and Mescaleros to remain peacefully on their respective reservations.

From 1884 to 1886 the 4th Cavalry again operated against the Apaches in Arizona and helped capture Geronimo. Particularly noteworthy was B troop's pursuit of Geronimo into Northern Mexico led by Capt. Lawton and Surgeon Leonard Wood. Thus ended the regiment's participation in the Indian Wars.

World War II

By World War II, the regiment had exchanged its horses for armored vehicles/tanks and was redesignated the 4th Cavalry Group. It put ashore the first Allied soldiers of the D-Day invasion on the Îles Saint-Marcouf islands off the coast of France.[1] With the islands unoccupied, but heavily booby trapped, the cavalrymen came ashore at Utah Beach. The regiment added to its laurels in fierce fighting among the hedgerows of Normandy and in the Hurtgen Forest during the Battle of the Bulge.

Vietnam War

In 1965, the First Squadron of the 4th Cavalry ("1st of the 4th Cavalry" or 1-4 Cavalry - popularly called "Quarterhorse") deployed to the Republic of Vietnam with the First Infantry Division, spending eight years fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia. The Squadron's firepower, mobility, and shock effect led to their use as "Fire Brigades" at the scenes of the hottest action. They were followed by the Third Squadron, Fourth Cavalry (which was part of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division and commonly called "Three-Quarter Horse" or "Mackenzie's Raiders"). Both divisions were posted near Saigon and participated in some of the largest operations of the Vietnam War.

Gulf War

On May 4, 1991, the 1-4 Cavalry received the Valorous Unit Award for service in the Gulf. Excerpt from orders: "The 1st squadron, 4th cavalry led the 1st infantry divisions attack across Iraq and Kuwait cutting the Iraqi army's escape route, the Kuwait city/Basra highway. The Squadron continued its rapid advance, culminating with the capture of the Safwan airfield. During this drive the squadron destroyed 65 tanks, 66 armored personnel carriers, 66 trucks, 91 bunkers, and captured 3,000 enemy soldiers."

Balkans Conflict

In 1995, 1-4 Cavalry was the second cavalry unit deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina, (the first being 1-1 cav from Buedingen, Germany)supporting the peacekeeping mission set forth by the Dayton Peace Accord, for a period of eleven months at Camp Molly, Camp Alicia called the "Dog Pound" near Kalesija and Eagle Camp at Tuzla Main. 1999 and 2000 saw the air cav elements of the Quarterhorse returning to the Balkans, this time Kosovo, as members of Operation Joint Guardian II.

Yugoslavian POW Incident (1999)

On April 1, 1999, Yugoslav authorities paraded three grim-faced and bruised American soldiers on Serbian television. The soldiers had been captured the day before near the Macedonian border. The men were identified as SPC Steven Gonzales, SSG Christopher Stone and SSG Andrew Ramirez. All three soldiers were assigned to B Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry of the 1st Infantry Division, stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany.

The soldiers disappeared after reporting they had been surrounded and had come under small arms fire. NATO forces and Macedonian police units immediately began searching for the missing three-man patrol. When captured, the Americans were operating as part of a NATO force put in place "conducting a peacekeeping and observation mission" near Macedonia's border with Kosovo, which at the time was a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.

Comments made by the American captives, while on television were censored by the Yugoslavian government. But a lip reader told London's Mirror that SPC Gonzales had said "To everyone at home, I'm real fit, and I want to get out of this prison." SSG Stone, his face smeared with blood, said, "I'm not making any comment at all because I don't feel safe. I feel a bit sick about it all." The third captive, SSG Ramirez said nothing. Immediately after the three Americans were shown on TV, there was debate about their legal status. United States officials first carefully avoided calling the soldiers POWs. They claimed the prisoners had been illegally abducted and demanded their immediate release.

Yugoslav authorities insisted the three were not POWs. They claimed the Americans had been captured on the Yugoslavian side of the border. Lawyers in Yugoslavia speculated the men could be charged with "waging aggression," which carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years, or "espionage," which has a maximum penalty of 20 years. Yugoslav officials said they intended to try the American soldiers as criminals.

The International Committee of the Red Cross quickly moved declaring that the captives did qualify as POWs under the Geneva Convention treaty. "For us it is very clear. There is an international armed conflict between NATO and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and these three captured soldiers are ... prisoners of war," ICRC spokeswoman Doris Pfister said. "They can be tried if they are accused of war crimes or if they are accused of any crime which is linked to domestic law," Pfister said. "But what is important is that the fact of being on a mission for the American army is not a reason to try them." The most important thing, Pfister said, is to have access to the soldiers and to see that they are being well-treated. The ICRC asked Belgrade for unsupervised visits with the soldiers, but received no reply. Pfister said there also has been debate about whether showing the men on Yugoslav television violated a section of the convention that protects them from "insults and public curiosity," but the legal interpretation of the article was not clear.

Yugoslavia later signaled a retraction when its foreign minister, Živadin Jovanović, referred to the American captives as prisoners of war (POW), a term that carries with it protected status under the treaty. Washington also changed position and began referring to the men as POWs.

By April 6, Yugoslavia had reversed its position and assured the international press that the American POWs would not be tried and would be released at the end of hostilities. That same day, the Yugoslav leadership declared a "unilateral ceasefire" in honor of "the greatest Orthodox holiday, Easter." The Yugoslavians pledged to work on a settlement to the crisis which would allow the ethnic Albanian refugees to return to Kosovo. The Clinton White House rejected the ceasefire saying it was not interested in "hollow gestures." U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said the Serb ceasefire idea was "not only completely unacceptable but absurd."

At the same time, Spyros Kyprianou, a Greek who was the parliament speaker on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, announced that he would travel to Yugoslavia to secure the release of the three American prisoners. Kyprianou suggested that NATO should observe a ceasefire over the Orthodox Easter holiday, if Yugoslavia would agree to free the three American servicemen. NATO refused the offer.

On April 9, Kyprianou announced that the three U.S.POWs would not be returned home early. His talks in Belgrade to secure their release had failed. The Cypriot envoy complained that within hours of his arrival in Belgrade, NATO intensified the bombing all around the Yugoslavian capital. "It was expected … that during my stay at least some respect should have been shown and some understanding until I had finished my consultations," he said. The Clinton administration responded by saying Mr. Kyprianou's failure was not a surprise. The Yugoslavians hardened their position saying that the POWs will not be released until the war is settled.[2]

Finally on May 1, 1999, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević ordered the release of the three United States soldiers held in Yugoslavia. This was after the US civil rights leader, Reverend Jesse Jackson, made an appeal to Slobodan Milošević during a three-hour meeting in Belgrade. Rev. Jesse Jackson travelled to Yugoslavia with a delegation of religious leaders to seek the soldiers' release.

The move comes in spite of an earlier statement by Yugoslav Assistant Foreign Minister Nebojša Vujović, who said the release would not be "on the agenda" for the meeting. Rev. Jesse Jackson said he had made a "moral appeal" to the Yugoslav leader during their meeting. During the meeting, President Milošević urged the religious leaders to jointly exert moral pressure "in order that the rule of law prevail over the rule of force in the world", Serbian Radio said.

White House officials tried to dissuade Rev. Jackson from traveling to Yugoslavia. When he insisted on making the trip, they urged him to tell Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević that there could be no link between the release of the soldiers and an end to NATO air strikes.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and leader of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition who ran for the U.S. Presidency in 1984 and 1988, had previously secured the release of captives/hostages held in Syria (1984), Cuba (1987), Kuwait and Iraq (1990). Rev. Jackson was named in October 1997 as "Special Envoy of the President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa", however the White House said his trip to Belgrade was purely a private mission unrelated to his appointment as a Special Envoy.[3]

- "K4B" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

The Schweinfurt-based "Quarterhorse" was tasked to be part of the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade task force due to rotate into Kosovo, in late 2002. The squadron was to lead the U.S. contingent's aviation task force of OH-58D Kiowa and UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, as well as provide force protection personnel for the U.S. headquarters at Camp Bondsteel. In late-October 2002, soldiers with 1st Infantry Division's, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment were abruptly told they would not deploy to Kosovo for peacekeeping duties, after working for several months to ready equipment they had received for their peacekeeping mission. 1st Infantry Division officials in Kosovo said they could not comment on the change, while a spokesman for V Corps, the division's Corps headquarters, referred all questions to EUCOM, the overall combatant command for V Corps. A EUCOM spokesman said he could not comment on the change, referring all questions back to V Corps. The first trainloads of the squadron's equipment bound for the Balkans from Germany was called back after departing Schweinfurt, en route to the Balkans.[4]

On November 6, 2002, the 1st Infantry Division published a WARNO (warning order) establishing ARFOR-T (Army Forces Turkey). This mission was enormous, encompassing the subordinate units of 2 heavy mechanized divisions, 4th ID and 1st ID. Normally these missions are assigned to Corps headquarters. The following months involved extensive planning, Command Post Exercises, and a joint warfighter with 1st ID key personnel traveling to Ft. Hood, TX, to conduct planning with the 4th ID staff. During this time the 1st Squadron's Commander, Lt. Col. James H. Chevallier, designated about 40 personnel to comprise an ADVON, and they deployed to Turkey in early February. Their mission was to conduct a detailed route reconnaissance from the seaport of debarkation (SPOD) at İskenderun, on the Mediterranean Sea coast, in south-central Turkey, to the border crossing near the Tactical Assembly Areas located near the towns of Silopi, Dicle, and Cizre, near the Turkish-Iraqi border. The route reconnaissance conducted by less than 30 Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers is believed to the longest route recon conducted in modern times; the men assigned the task catalogued every bridge, route constriction and obstruction, hill grade, and curve radius for nearly 500 miles (800 km). The goal of ARFOR-T was to open a second front, to crush Iraqi armed resistance from the North. The Quarterhorse, mounted on the hastily drawn, and refurbished, HMMWVs they had prepared initially for their Kosovo rotation, would conduct a screen along one of the 4th IDs flanks as it charged south out of Turkey. While the Quarterhorse was conducting the route reconnaissance, the Turkish government debated at length whether they should to allow Coalition forces to invade from their territory, finally signaling in early March 2003 that the invasion would not be permitted from their soil. By early April, all of the Quarterhorse Troopers returned to Schweinfurt, unsure what the future held, as the Iraqi Regime was toppled by forces assaulting north from Kuwait. The main body of the Squadron never deployed out of Germany, despite being on standby and prepared to move for nearly 2 weeks in early March.

It is worth noting, that despite the invasion from the north that never materialized, the Quarterhorse participated in an accidental, yet convincing and important, deception that caused Saddam Hussein to order 13 armored divisions to the north to meet the invasion force.[citation needed] Because of this, the enemy force strength, or Order of Battle, was significantly reduced in the South, enabling the rapid assault from Kuwait in the opening days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

1-4 Cav deployed to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom II (OIF II) from February 2004 to March 2005. The Squadron was deployed to two Base camps; Fob McKenzie near Ad-Duluiya and FOB Wilson just outside of Ad-Dawr south of Tikirt in Salah-ad-Din Province. The squadron relieved elements of two battalions from the 4th Infantry Division. In September 2004 the Squadron led the way for 1ID's retaking of the city of Samara from insurgent control and passed control of the city back to 2nd BDE, 1 ID. In January 2005 the Squadron oversaw the conduct of the first Iraqi parliamentary elections after the 2003 invasion within their sector and passed over control of their sector to elements of the 3rd Infantry division before redeployment.